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Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety, a respectable woman by Kate Chopin.

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Mrs. Baroda was a little provoked to learn that her husband expected his friend, Governail,

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up to spend a week or two on the plantation.

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They had entertained a good deal during this winter, much of the time had also been passed

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in New Orleans in various forms of mild dissipation.

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She was looking forward to a period of unbroken rest.

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Now an undisturbed a tettetay with her husband when he informed her that Governail was coming

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up to stay a week or two.

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This was a man she had heard so much of but never seen.

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He had been her husband's college friend, was now a journalist and in no sense a society

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man or a man about town which were perhaps some of the reasons she had never met him.

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But she had unconsciously formed an image of him in her mind.

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She picked him tall, slim, cynical, with eyeglasses and his hands in his pockets and she did

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not like him.

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Governail was slim enough but he wasn't very tall nor very cynical.

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Neither did he wear eyeglasses nor carry his hands in his pockets and she rather liked

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him when he first presented himself.

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But why she liked him, she could not explain satisfactorily to herself when she partly attempted

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to do so.

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She could discover in him none of those brilliant and promising traits which Gaston her husband

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had often assured her that he possessed.

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On the contrary, he sat rather mute and receptive before her chatty eagerness to make him feel

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at home and in face of Gaston's frank and wordy hospitality.

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This manner was as courteous towards her as the most exacting woman could require but he

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made no direct appeal to her approval or even a steam.

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Once settled at the plantation he seemed to like to sit upon the wide portico in the shade

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of one of the big Corinthian pillars, smoking his cigar lazily and listening attentively

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to Gaston's experiences as a sugar planter.

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This is what I call living he would utter with deep satisfaction as the air that swept

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across the sugar fields caressed him with its warm and scented felvety touch.

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It pleased him also to get on familiar terms with the big dogs that came about him, rubbing

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themselves socially against his legs.

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He did not care to fish and displayed no eagerness to go out and kill crossbecks when Gaston proposed

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they do so.

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Gavanale's personality puzzled Mrs. Baroda but she liked him.

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Indeed he was a lovable, inoffensive fellow.

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After a few days when she could understand him no better than at first she gave over being

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puzzled and remained peaked.

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In this mood she left her husband and her guest for the most part alone altogether.

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Then finding that Gavanale took no matter of exception to her action she imposed her society

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upon him accompanying him to his idle strolls to the mill and the walks along the bachelors.

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She persistently sought to penetrate the reserve in which he had unconsciously enveloped

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himself.

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When is he going, your friend?

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She one day asked her husband, "For my part he tires me frightfully."

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Not for a week yet dear, "I can't understand."

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He gives you no trouble.

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"No, I should like him better if he did.

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If he were more like others and I had to plan somewhat for his comfort and enjoyment."

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He then took his wife's pretty face between his hands and looked handily and laughingly into

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her troubled eyes.

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They were making a bit of toilet socially together in Mrs. Baroda's dressing room.

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"You are full of surprises, Mabel," he said to her, "even I can never count upon how

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you are going to act under giving conditions."

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He kissed her and turned to fast in his grave act before the mirror.

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"Here you are," he went on.

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Taking poor Gavin Aill seriously and making a commotion over him, the last thing he would

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desire or expect.

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"Commotion," she hotly resented, "Nonsense.

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How can you say such a thing?

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Commotion indeed, but you know," he said he was clever.

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So he is.

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But the poor fellow is run down by overwork now.

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That is why I asked him here to take a rest.

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You used to say he was a man of ideas she retorted, unconciliated.

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I expected him to be interesting, at least.

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I am going to the city in the morning to have my sprung gowns fitted.

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Let me know when Mr. Gavin Aill is gone.

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I shall be at my aunt Octavius.

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At night she went and sat down alone upon a bench that stood beneath a live oak tree at

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the edge of the gravel wall.

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She had never known her thoughts or her intentions to be so confused.

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She could gather nothing from them but the feeling of a distinct necessity to quit her home

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in the morning.

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Mrs. Baroda heard footsteps crunching the gravel.

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She could discern in the darkness only the approaching red point of a lighted cigar.

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She knew it was Gavin Aill, but her husband did not smoke.

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She hoped to remain unnoticed, but her white gown revealed her to him.

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He threw away his cigar and seated himself upon the bench beside her, without a suspicion

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that she might object to his presence.

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Her husband told me to bring this to you Mrs. Baroda.

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He said, handing her a filmy white scarf, with which she sometimes enveloped her head and

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shoulders.

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She accepted the scarf from him with a murmur of thanks and let it lie in her lap.

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He made some commonplace observation upon the baneful effect of the night air at the

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season.

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As his gaze reached out into the darkness, he murmured half to himself.

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Night of the south winds, night of a large few stars, still nodding night.

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She made no reply to this apostrophe to the night which, indeed, was not addressed to her.

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Gavin Aill was in no sense a dividend man, that he was not a self-conscious one.

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His periods of reserve were not constitutional, but the results of moods.

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Sitting there beside Mrs. Baroda, his silence melted for the time.

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He talked freely and intimately in a low, hesitating drawn that was not unpleasant to hear.

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He talked of the old college days when he and Gaston had been a good deal to each other.

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With the days of keen and blind ambitions and large intentions.

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Now there was left with him, at least, a philosophic acquaintance to the existing order, only

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a desire to be permitted to exist, with now and then a little width of genuine life, such

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as he was breathing now.

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Her mind only vaguely gafsed what he was saying.

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Her physical being was for the moment predominant.

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She was not thinking of his words, only drinking in the tones of his voice.

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She wanted to reach out her hand, in the darkness and touching with the sensitive tips

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of her fingers upon the face or the lips.

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She wanted to draw close to him and whisper against his cheek.

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She did not care.

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As she might have done if she had not been a respectable woman.

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The stronger the impulse grew, to bring herself near him, the further, in fact, did she draw

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away from him.

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As soon as she could do so, without an appearance of two great arunas, she rose and left

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him there alone.

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Before she reached the house, Gavanale had lighted a fresh cigar and ended his apostrophe

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to the night.

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Mrs. Beroda was greatly tempted that night to tell her husband, who was also her friend

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of this folly that had seized her, but she did not yield to the temptation.

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Beside being a respectable woman, she was a very sensible one, and she knew there are some

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battles in life which a human being must fight alone.

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Then Gaston arose in the morning.

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His wife was already departed.

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She had taken an early morning train to the city.

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She did not return until Gavanale was gone from under her roof.

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There was some talk of having him back during the summer that followed, that is, Gaston

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greatly desired it, but this desire yielded to his wife's strenuous opposition.

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However, before the year he ended, she proposed wholly from herself to have Gavanale visit

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them again.

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The husband was surprised and delighted with a suggestion coming from her.

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I am glad, share to me, to know that you have finally overcome your dislike for him, truly

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he did not deserve it.

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Oh, she told him, laughingly, after pressing a long tender kiss upon his lips.

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I have overcome everything you will see.

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This time, I shall be very nice to him.

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